Sixty eight of the 99 doctors who did not report to work at their rural postings in the state have suddenly surfaced, and have sent applications to the Directorate of Health Services for transfers to more convenient locations.
These request letters have been pouring in over the last ten days at the DHS, ever since it issued a notice in the newspapers warning that those doctors who had not reported for rural duty would soon lose their licenses.
"We forwarded the 68 applications to the chief secretary and he has agreed to entertain only those doctors who have asked for a transfer to another rural area," said the DHS head Dr Satish Pawar. He said many doctors had sought postings nearer their native towns or closer to their spouse's town/city.
This year, the state posted 255 doctors in rural areas across Maharashtra. Of these, 119 have reported for duty at the hospitals assigned to them; 37 opted out of their opted for further studies after agreeing to do their rural stin…

The Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, has been ranked the best hospital with medical college (non-metro) for 2013 under India Healthcare Awards, 2013, by the Planning Commission of India. The award was announced in New Delhi last evening. Dr Vipin Koushal, acting medical superintendent and PS Saini, superintending hospital engineer (SHE) represented the hospital during the award ceremony. The award was presented by Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission of India. The India Healthcare Awards have been instituted to recognise and felicitate the best medical service providers in India by CNBC-TV18 and ICICI Lombard. CNBC-TV18 in partnership with ICICI Lombard instituted the India Healthcare Awards in 2010 to honour and recognise the healthcare providers in the country. An independent survey was carried out across 3,000 different categories of hospitals in the country. A jury of renowned doctors from India assessed the …

ICICI Lombard and CNBC -TV18 today announced the winners of the prestigious ‘India Healthcare Awards’. An initiative to recognize and honor India’s finest health care service providers witnessed more than 3500 hospitals from metro, non-metro as well as districts participating for the honors. A total of 27 awards were conferred at a grand function organized at The Taj Palace , New Delhi. The award ceremony was felicitated by Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission of India.
The winners include reputed Hospitals like Tata Memorial Hospital, Hinduja Hospital Mumbai; Lilavati Hospital & Research centre, Mumbai and Fortis Escorts Heart Institute, New Delhi among others.
Bhargav Dasgupta said “It’s been a memorable journey since we partnered with CNBC TV-18 in 2010 to introduce the India Healthcare Awards. Now in its fourth year, this platform has evolved considerably to become a benchmark that recognizes and acknowledges the efforts of the Leaders in the Hea…

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved obinutuzumab (Gazyva, Genentech) for the treatment of patients with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). The drug is indicated for use in combination with chlorambucil in this setting. Obinutuzumab is a glycoengineered antibody, which means that specific sugar molecules in GA101 were modified to change its interaction with immune cells. "Today's approval represents an important new addition to the treatments for patients with CLL," said Richard Pazdur, MD, director of the Office of Hematology and Oncology Products in the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, in a press statement. Obinutuzumab is the first drug with a "breakthrough therapy" designation to receive FDA approval. That means that obinutuzumab has the potential to offer a substantial improvement over available therapies for patients with serious or life-threatening diseases. "This approval reflects the promise of the Br…

Profit will become the sole motiveBipin Batra, Executive director, National Board of Examinations A century after the Flexner Re­port (1910) iden­tified the con­dition of med­­ical education in the United States, it can be said that medical education in India bears resemblance to the US case. Its feature is a continuous dec­­­line in standards. While the Flexner Report tra­n­sformed medical education in the US and Canada, medical education in our country is th­r­e­atened by jurisdiction over regulation, inadequacy of funding and the incr­e­asing st­ake of private med­ical schools.
India’s medical instituti­ons range from public ins­ti­t­utions, private and family owned institutions that function more like enterprises, and autono­mous institutions owned by faith based organisations or real soc­ial enterprises.
An analysis of the ownership pattern suggests that the ethos of an institution has a striking impact on the quality of the outcome. Institutions with high social accountability pro…

In a major breakthrough, an inkjet printer in Britain can print eye cells which can be used to cure human blindness.
For the first time ever, researchers from UK have used inkjet printing technology to successfully print two types of cells from the retina of adult rats - ganglion cells and glial cells.
The breakthrough could lead to the production of artificial tissue grafts made from the variety of cells found in the human retina and may aid in the search to cure blindness.
In their study, the researchers used a piezoelectric inkjet printer device that ejected the cells through a sub-millimetre diameter nozzle when a specific electrical pulse was applied. They also used high speed video technology to record the printing process with high resolution and optimised their procedures accordingly.
"In order for a fluid to print well from an inkjet print head, its properties, such as viscosity and surface tension, need to conform to a fairly narrow range of values. Adding cells to the …

The proposal of Medical Council of India (MCI) to amend the Post Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2000, to make one year rural posting at a Public Health Centre (PHC) mandatory for a MBBS student, to apply for admission in a PG medical course, has been approved by the Health Ministry. This is proposed to be implemented from the academic year 2015-16.

This was stated by Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha today.

MBBS students applying for admission to post-graduate medical courses from academic year 2015-16 will have to undertake a mandatory rural posting at a public health centre (PHC) for one year.
This was stated by minister of health and family welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
He said this comes into effect after the proposal ofMedical Council of India (MCI) to amend the Post Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2000, in this regard has since been approved by the ministry of health and family welfare.
The minister said there is a shortfall of the number of doctors in the country, with 2,489 doctors falling short in primary health centres.
Azad said there is also a shortfall of 3,459 surgeons, 3,005 obstericians and gynaecologists, 3,667 physicians, 3,270 paediatricians and a total of 13,477 specialists in community health centres across the country as on March 31, 2012.

1. Aclidinium bromide: An anticholinergic with specificity for muscarinic receptors. It has similar affinity to the subtypes of muscarinic receptors M1 to M5. In the airways, it exhibits pharmacological effects through inhibition of M3 receptor at the smooth muscle leading to bronchodilation. It has been recently approved for COPD. 2. Ado-trastuzumab emtansine: It is a HER2-targeted antibody (trastuzumab) and microtubule inhibitor (mertansine) conjugate indicated for the treatment of patients with HER2-positive, metastatic breast cancer. Trastuzumab alone stops growth of cancer cells by binding to the HER2/neu receptor, whereas mertansine enters cells and destroys them by binding to tubulin. Because the monoclonal antibody targets HER2, and HER2 is only over-expressed in cancer cells, the conjugate delivers the toxin specifically to tumor cells. Its major adverse effects include hepatotoxicity, cardiotoxicity (reduction in left ventricular ejection fraction), and teratogenicity. 3. Alog…